Hermit crab free!  A miracle considering the "beach crap" store across the street was giving them away.  Seriously, can someone please explain why all beach towns love to saddle parents with new pets while on vacation?


As most family vacations go, it was a week of ups and downs.  I am very happy that we went, and watching the cousins play was a blast, but the vacation gods made sure that we worked for it.

The morning after we got into town Kate had a high fever.  Her ears were bright red so I decided to take her into Urgent Care ("Beach" Urgent Care...  I petition that the words "beach" and "urgent care" never be on a marquis together, mmmkay?) to make sure she didn't have an ear infection.  We went in and her ears were clear.  She was running a low grade fever but nothing else was popping up.  Viral illness was the diagnosis and we were sent back to our condo to ride it out.

My sweet Kate wears every last bit of her feelings out in the open.  She can be the nicest, sweetest, most compassionate and understanding toddler you have ever met.  She can also be a raging beast when she doesn't feel well.  Kate with a fever?  Watch out world.  She bites.  And whines.  And wants to murder her brother for just looking at her and blinking.  To put it mildly, she is really hard to be around.  Especially when we are out of our element and living in a small space with lots of other people.

By Tuesday I couldn't take it anymore.  She was miserable, I was miserable, her fever was high and her mouth was bothering her.  Back to Beach Urgent Care we went and after about 30 minutes we were diagnosed with strep.  Antibiotics are better than the strongest cocktail for a mom.  A few doses later Kate was perking up and starting to enjoy the reason we were there: to play on the beach!

We spent the rest of the week playing in the sand, hanging at the pool, splashing in the baby pool, cruising around the lazy river, and vegging out on the balcony.



On Saturday we packed the car back up and headed home.   

Have a WONDERFUL 4th of July!